Model Kombat - The Memorial Tournament (2023) by Spencer Aguiar & Byron Lindeque

Spencer and Byron compare notes (and models) to figure out what players possess the largest disparities for them during this week's Memorial Tournament.

At RotoBaller, we are constantly searching for ways to give our readers the best fantasy sports content possible. With that goal in mind, we proudly announce our new 'Model Kombat' article, a piece that will compare some of the differences inside the projections on the site from Spencer Aguiar and Byron Lindeque.

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Last Five Winners Of The Memorial

Expected Cut-Line

Let's Look At The Stats

Key Stats From Byron

Key Stats From Spencer

• 50% Stats/30% Weighted Form, 20% Course History
• Weighted Tee To Green (35%)
• Weighted Proximity + ATG (15%)
• Weighted Strokes Gained Total - Fast Bentgrass (10%)
• Strokes Gained Total Nicklaus Designs (10%)
• Weighted Scoring (20%)
• Total Driving + GIR Percentage (10%)

Fantasy Golf Lineup Picks for DraftKings (PGA DFS)

We have tons of great weekly PGA articles, DFS analysis, tools and DFS advice. Be sure to read our other fantastic articles regarding this week's event.

Players Spencer Is Higher On This Week

Round 1...Fight

Davis Riley ($6,900)

Spencer - I have never been a Davis Riley sort of guy. However, after a handful of disappointing results in a row (six straight, to be exact), the entire industry seems to be giving up on him at an event that is the first one in months where my model actually likes his potential for this week. Riley graded an impressive 19th in this field for expected total driving + GIR percentage, and the weighted tee to green number inside my model helped him climb from a shaky 65th at a generic course on tour to 32nd for this course-specific answer. I understand the trepidation around a golfer that has been bad throughout most of this season, but I am willing to trust my math when it is not as if any of those past failures were showing the same high-end indicators.

Byron - Spencer sending out his first fighter who is coming off a 6-fight losing streak dating back to the PLAYERS Championship where he had his last taste of success (T19), is a bold move. His around the green play has been an unstoppable nosebleed for most of the year, with his putting showing a bit a promise at times, but not nearly consistently enough. The only thing Riley has going for him in my model is his approach play for 2023, which sits just outside the top-20 in this field. His putting does see a bump in performance on Bentgrass at minimal ownership in the $6k range, but with his bloody chipping blurring his vision almost every round it's no surprise he can't see results in other areas of his game.

Chez Reavie ($6,200)

Spencer - I don't believe I have played Chez Reavie in DFS in five years of working at RotoBaller. Reavie is not a golfer that I find intriguing because of his poor combination of distance and paltry around-the-green returns. Still, that narrative went out the window here at the Memorial since I located a ton of intriguing measurables that my model liked from a metric perspective. Reavie jumped from 90th to 43rd when recalculating my tee to green numbers to mimic Muirfield Village, and the recent surge in approach play has been noticeable for him here in 2023. I assume the latter of that answer is why he has generated five made cuts in six tournaments, something I am willing to take a shot on at his $6,200 price.

Byron - Let the record show that I, too, am a believer in Chez Reavie and have miraculously been on him a whopping two more bouts than Spencer, rostering him at the PGA Championship and the Charles Schwab. I have par 5 scoring (15%), bogey avoidance (10%) and around the green play (15%) weighted rather heavily in this week's model, with Reavie receiving multiple body blows in each of those areas, with his bogey avoidance the best of them at 79th in the field. Now, when things are going well for Chez, he has accuracy off the tee (12th), incredible weighted GIR% (14th) and has been putting lights out since the Valero Texas Open. Despite the disparities in our models, I am more than will to lure Chez over to my team for a third straight week now that his rough start to 2023 is clearly in the rear-view mirror.

Keith Mitchell ($7,600)

Spencer - It doesn't shock me that Byron's model dislikes Keith Mitchell after diving into his recent form. Failing to post a top-50 finish in five consecutive tournaments won't exactly scream "buy now." However, I go back to the answer I have stated numerous times in this article that some courses are better made for a golfer than others. Mitchell's immaculate total driving has a chance to play well over four days at Muirfield Village, which should help explain his back-to-back top 25 finishes at this track since 2020. I'll take that high-end potential at his reduced ownership rate.

Byron - The reason for the ownership discount on somebody at this price and solid course history, is the mosh pit that starts with any club with more than 10 degrees of loft, ranking 116th in recent approach and 105th around the green. There is no denying that Mitchell owns the 3rd-most powerful haymaker in the Model Kombat club, combining accuracy and distance and  losing strokes off the tee to only Scheffler and Cantlay. His Bentgrass stats are also rather promising as the 8th best putter from 5-15 on this surface, which he will have to lead the field in this week as two key areas of his game will seemingly be unavailable to contribute to the Memorial team project.

Jason Dufner ($6,000)

Spencer - Are we sure the form is as bad as it looks for the 725th-ranked player in the world? I say that partially joking for someone that hasn't landed inside the top 30 of an event since the Barbasol Championship in 2022, but the 2023 form isn't as poor as it might look on paper. Three consecutive missed cuts at the Byron Nelson, Wells Fargo and RBC Heritage ruined a six-tournament made-cut streak from February to April, and the weighted numbers for Muirfield happen to be quite intoxicating at his stone-min price of $6,000. My goal is to try and sneak Dufner into the weekend if I go top-heavy with my construction, which we have seen come to fruition here in three of his past four stops since 2019.

Byron - If there were a "Rocky" present in this article, it would be Jason Dufner. He is stone-min, creating roster flexibility up top, but Dufner is coming off a trio of knockouts in his most recent fights and now has to go two rounds with the PGA's heavyweights at an elevated event. At his age he can only absorb so much damage before assuming fetal position and although his last 24 rounds on approach are 30th in the field, those two-dozen rounds stretch back to Pebble Beach in February. His last 4 starts have still seen gains on approach, but he is not nearly throwing those punches with as much accuracy and precision as he displayed earlier in the year. I would rather go with Reavie for $200 more.

Cameron Young ($8,800)

Spencer - My idea of creating an optimal model stems more from course-specific accuracy than your mundane answer of extracting data from all stops on tour. Not every setup is the same, and it certainly shouldn't be viewed as such when not every missed fairway penalizes in the same way. I say all of that to highlight that I ran my data to feature how someone has historically performed on easy-to-hit fairways that had thick rough, a category that propelled Young toward being the top-ranked driver of the ball for me at this track. Don't get his 60th-place finish here last season twisted since it took a Sunday 84 to plummet him down the leaderboard.

Byron - As somebody who owns far too many Young ReignMaker cards that have plummeted in value since almost winning the Match Play Championship, Muirfield Village is going to be throwing its own kicks and punches requiring a solid defense and counterattack potential from somebody I am looking to roster here, of which Young has neither ranking 93rd and 94th in in bogey avoidance and strokes gained around the green. His explosiveness off the tee is undeniable, but his inability to comfortably navigate disaster is a major concern for me. Also, known as one of the tour's best ball strikers, Young only has 1 of his last 13 rounds on approach gaining more than a stroke on the field, with 7 of those upside rounds in his previous 23, evidencing that he just doesn't have "IT" right now, although I desperately wish he did.

Did you know RotoBaller has a Premium DFS PGA subscription? Like what you read today? You can show your support for Spencer by using the discount code TEEOFF when purchasing a PGA Premium Pass. You get 10% off and full access to all of our Premium PGA articles, DFS tools, and Lineup Optimizer! You also get access to weekly betting picks from Spencer Aguiar, one of the top betting minds in the industry.

End of the Season Totals: @rotoballer @BettorGolfPod

2017 +54.26 Units
2018 +55.88 Units
2019 +27.743 Units
2020 + 37.015 Units
2021 + 68.846 Units
2022 +67.485 Units

Total Winnings: +311.229 Units

Total Outright Wins Since 2017: 36

H2H Totals Inside Thread… https://t.co/pNQrSK1rFE

— Spencer Aguiar (@TeeOffSports) December 12, 2022

Players Byron Is Higher On This Week

Round 2...Fight

Jason Day ($9,400)

Byron - I just took a look in the mirror and confirmed it is NOT "Freaky Friday" and I am still firmly present in my middle-aged dad bod, yet here we sit with Jason Day 16 spots higher in my model than in Spencer's? We now know Day needs ample time to prepare for a tournament, missing the cut at the PGA Championship without playing a practice round. He has had more than enough time to return rejuvenated to a course he lives close to and seems to fit really well. Day makes the 2nd-least amount of bogeys in the field and has displayed a really tidy short game in his return to form that has seen him finish inside the top-20 in 7 of his last 10 events. Day's worst ranking is strokes gained on Bentgrass over the last 50 rounds, which is a victim of sample size as he is the 11th best putter in the field this season. The ONLY time Day has gained on approach at Muirfield in his last ELEVEN appearances was in 2020, finishing 4th. He cannot continue to hit his irons that poorly here, and since Spencer has sold his soul to devil for us, we are looking to capitalize on that.

Spencer - The last time I spoke ill words of Jason Day, the Aussie f***ed around and made sure we all found out by winning the damn thing at the Byron Nelson. If I need to push myself into this anti-Day role to get the best out of him, I will play my part and do what needs to be done to get us another win.

Matthew Fitzpatrick ($9,000)

Byron - I may be running my proximity numbers over a shorter sample size and with a different proration of projected proximities approaches will take place from, but Fitz actually has the 28th best weighted proximity in my model in 2023. He also avoids hitting poor shots (losing -0.5 strokes on a single shot) to the tune of a top-25 ranking there. He is 12th in par 5 scoring and 17th in bogey avoidance which should keep him moving up the leaderboard after playing each of the par 5s, which are the only holes on the course that average under par. Although our guy doesn't have the style of play that can knock out the rest of the field, his consistency off the tee (34th) and around the greens (20th) will result in a lot of wins by decision, avoiding fatal mistakes and constantly pestering his opponents with weird grips on his chips and braces in his late 20s. His ownership is also rather appealing, coming in lower than most of the dudes Spence prefers below.

Spencer - I struggle to find where I want to be with Matthew Fitzpatrick because of his weighted proximity numbers. I don't necessarily dislike him as much as my model does from an output stance since the 100th-place grade for weighted proximity is a damaging return that plummets his rank. However, I continue to find myself preferring Justin Thomas, Sungjae Im, Jordan Spieth, Hideki Matsuyama and Cameron Young when directly comparing Fitz to his closest counterparts.

Matt Kuchar ($7,500)

Byron - "Never Matt Kuchar" despite his field-best strokes gained around the green, third-best bogey avoidance and top-10 par 5 scoring? The ownership is a slight issue here and I understand if you want to pivot off of that. Just know that his approach play has seen an uptick over the last 6 rounds and Kuch had finishes of T45, T32, MC, T13 in his last few Memorial appearances with his ball striking much improved compared to the previous two seasons. He is also quietly having his best statistical around the green season of his career, which has been ridiculously impressive in that department over the last two decades. The upside concerns are real, but the safety in the mid $7k range is what appeals to me most, finding the damage dealers towards the top of the board knowing our salary saver will be holding down the fort.

Spencer - In the words of my good friend Nick Bretwisch, "Never Matt Kuchar." I question the upside that he possesses at a still expensive $7,500 price tag, and the ownership will likely land as one of the two or three highest in this range. That combination is suboptimal for me when talking GPPs. 

Brendon Todd ($6,700)

Byron - The same goes for Brendon Todd as what we just said about Kuchar. Todd vaults up the rankings thanks to his 9th-ranked accuracy off the tee (7%) and Bentgrass putting that is top-3 in the field. He is also the 3rd-best around the greens and despite his lack of length, is top-30 in bogey avoidance and 39th in par 5 scoring, which, for a $6,700 fighter, we can feel comfortable sending into battle on a course with finishes of T53 and T22 in his two appearances, doing most of his damage in the short game department.

Spencer - I am not as in love with Brendon Todd as Byron because of the inferior weighted scoring I calculated for him in my model. Still, I don't have any issues with someone if they did want to consider the American at this price. The 2023 form is strong, and the course history looks suitable for a golfer priced at $6,700 this week. My lack of opinion isn't worth dying on this hill, so if Byron can convince you to play what I consider a 50/50 option, all the more power to him.

Wyndham Clark ($8,200)

Byron - I agree that the hype was a little too much after his win, but now we get Clark in single digit ownership at $8,200, which seems fair for a golfer who is 4th in weighted strokes gained on approach also hitting the 10th most greens out of the rough from 150+. His putting has been sensational lately and with his missed cut at the PGA Championship being the first in his 11 starts this year, he gets a deserving break before looking to continue staking his claim as one of the very best iron players in the field. His accuracy off the tee is a bit of a concern, but his elite distance and solid approach play out the rough should combat that. He is also 12th in par 5 scoring and is top-20 in bogey avoidance. These are all great metrics for somebody flirting with the $7k range.

Spencer -I am starting to wonder if the Wyndham Clark hype may have gotten a little carried away after his win at the Wells Fargo Championship. The 2023 turnaround with his irons will provide a pronounced improvement in any capacity of how you run the data, but the slight reduction in the plurality of approaches from 200+ yards does hurt some of that ceiling. Sure, there will be a ton of shots that will take place from very deep when those moments happen, but we are still looking at a five percent decrease in occurrences of long iron expectation.

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